Could Drake Beat Beyoncé in First-Week Sales?

Despite the fact that Views is barely 48 hours old, it’s been reported that Drake has already racked in some astonishing numbers. During an event in Toronto last night, Drake revealed to the crowd that Views may have already sold 630,000 records.

Of course, it’s still early to make such projections, but if one takes into account the RIAA’s recent changes to award certifications for albums, Drake’s first-week sales may beat out that of Beyoncé’sLemonade.

As Forbes points out, the new rules mean that the streaming performance of any song holds the same importance as an album sale. RIAA also takes into account the streaming performance of songs that were released before an album actually drops. As well, 1,500,000 streams of a song in the U.S. is equal to 1,000 actual album sales.

Even so, if the text that Drake received about his first-day sales are accurate, it means that he may have sold over a million records in the first day based on RIAA’s new rules, bizarrely eclipsing the first-week projections for Beyoncé’s Lemonade of half a million.

If we’ve learned anything about Drake’s career thus far, it’s that he sells: If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late is certified double platinum, Nothing Was The Same triple platinum, and Take Care quadruple platinum.

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